Senior Director, Shelter Partnerships

The Senior Director, National Shelter & Community Health Strategy is the enterprise executive responsible for defining and executing VCA’s nationwide shelter partnership ecosystem. Elevating the animal welfare initiative into a strategic pillar, this leader is accountable for expanding VCA’s societal impact, championing animal welfare, and driving measurable pet health outcomes through rigorous adoption-to-care conversion.

This role pairs visionary advocacy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) with sophisticated commercial discipline. The Senior Director establishes and oversees data architecture, performance dashboards, and predictive funnel analytics to track shelter partner productivity, adoption onboarding, new client acquisition, and long-term retention across VCA’s network of 1,000+ primary care and specialty hospitals. Serving as a high-visibility public ambassador and an internal cross-functional leader, this individual aligns field operations, marketing, medical leadership, and animal welfare organizations to ensure VCA supports the maximum number of pets in communities across North America.

This role requires associates to work out of a MVH North America hub location – Vancouver, WA | Santa Monica, CA | Tampa, FL

Essential Responsibility/Tasks:

• Strategic Shelter Portfolio Architecture & Vision: Architect and steer the multi-year national shelter strategy, aligning animal welfare impact with VCA’s commercial OGSM objectives. Identify, negotiate, and scale high-impact strategic alliances with municipal agencies, tier-one humane societies, and national animal welfare organizations.
• Data Analytics, Dashboards & Performance Accountability: Build, govern, and institutionalize comprehensive reporting dashboards (BI/Tableau/Power BI) to monitor partner-level KPIs, funnel conversion rates, ROI, adoption throughput, and pet healthcare compliance. Establish performance baselines and hold regional teams and partner organizations accountable to shared targets.
• Pet Conversion & Lifelong Client Journey Optimization: Spearhead data-driven adoption-to-hospital onboarding pathways that convert shelter adopters into lifelong VCA clients. In partnership with digital product and CRM teams, optimize initial health voucher redemption, first-visit compliance, digital app enrollment (myVCA), and preventive care plan attachment (CareClub®).
• Cross-Functional Field Integration & Hospital Enablement: Partner closely with Field Operations, Regional Medical Directors, and Hospital Managers to ensure field-level operational readiness, scalable execution of shelter programs, and hospital capacity alignment. Develop standardized SOPs, field toolkits, and training modules to remove friction between local shelters and VCA hospitals.
• Brand Amplification, CSR & External Advocacy: Serve as VCA’s executive public voice and liaison to the animal welfare sector, industry advisory councils, and political/regulatory discussions. Partner with Communications and Brand Marketing to amplify VCA’s commitment to ending pet homelessness and expanding equitable access to veterinary care.
• Budget Stewardship & P&L Accountability: Manage national shelter program budgets, grant distributions, philanthropic sponsorships, and promotional investments, ensuring clear ROI and sustainable resource allocation.

Education/Experience:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Data Analytics, Non-Profit Management, or related field / Preferred - Master of Business Administration (MBA) or related Master's degree
• 10+ years of progressive experience in strategic partnership management, B2B/referral marketing, or commercial brand leadership; proven record managing multi-million-dollar programs / Preferred - 12+ years combining animal health/welfare leadership, veterinary healthcare networks, or consumer retention platforms with multi-location retail/clinical footprints
• Microsoft Office suite, particularly PowerPoint and Excel
• Expert-level PowerPoint and Excel skills

*All degrees will be deemed “or equivalent combination of education and experience” unless absolutely required to do the job (i.e., DVM degree for Veterinarian, Law degree for Attorney, etc.).

 

Preferred Skills and Qualifications:

• Data-Led Strategic Acumen: Proven ability to translate raw adoption data and field metrics into executive dashboards, clear business insights, and growth strategies.
• Conversion Funnel Mastery: Expertise in designing omni-channel customer acquisition funnels (digital vouchers, email nurturing, mobile app integration) that bridge third-party partner touchpoints into brick-and-mortar veterinary visits.
• Executive Presence & Stakeholder Diplomacy: Skilled in navigating politically sensitive, highly visible environments with diverse constituencies, including shelter board directors, municipal government leaders, veterinary professionals, and executive leadership.
• Operational Scalability: Demonstrated success standardizing grassroots or regional initiatives into repeatable, scalable national operating models across 900+ decentralized sites.
• Mission Alignment & Commercial Savvy: Deep passion for animal welfare coupled with an uncompromising focus on operational excellence, financial sustainability, and ROI.

 

Core Competencies:

• Strategic Mindset & Vision: Anticipates animal welfare and industry shifts; aligns shelter initiatives directly to overarching enterprise brand and operational goals.
• Data Fluency & Decision Quality: Leverages data dashboards and conversion analytics rather than intuition to allocate resources and optimize partner performance.
• Influencing Without Direct Authority: Adept at aligning disparate operational units, field teams, and external non-profit partners around common metrics and shared value.
• Customer & Community Focus: Committed to expanding care access for newly adopted pets, improving shelter outcomes, and delivering seamless client experiences.
• Conflict Resolution & Political Savvy: Navigates sensitive animal welfare relationships, reputational considerations, and competitive market dynamics diplomatically.

Working Conditions:

• This is an in-office position, based in the VCA support office in Los Angeles, CA.
• The director must be able to travel up to 40% of the time, subject to VCA’s travel policy.
• Ability to stand, walk, stoop, kneel, crouch, and climb as well as manipulate (lift, carry, and move) up to 50 pounds. Lifting higher weights requires requesting assistance from another associate.
• Requires good hand-eye coordination, arm-hand-finger dexterity with the ability to grasp, and visual acuity to use a keyboard and operate necessary equipment.
• Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision.
• Occasionally exposed to airborne particles and illness from patients and chemicals related to animal care and office equipment.
• The noise level in the work environment is normally moderate.
• Environment where pets are present.
• The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative of those that must be met by an associate to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Additional Information:

Compensation is negotiable based on education, experience, and other relevant credentials. The US base salary range for this full-time position is $133,000 - $175,000. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only.

If you are a current associate, you need to apply through our internal career site. Please log into Workday and click on the Jobs Hub app or search for Browse Jobs.

Benefits: We offer competitive compensation along with a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, vision and paid vacation/sick days, 401(k), generous employee pet discounts and more!

The information in this position description indicates the general nature and level of work to be performed. It is not designed to be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of associates assigned to this job. Management reserves the right to revise the job description or require that other tasks be performed when the circumstances of the job change (for example, emergencies, change in personnel, workload, or technical development).

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. For a complete EEO statement please see our career page at vcacareers.com.